Personal Tech

Refresh cycle sluggishness is a tailwind, insists PC giant's money people

HP estimates that three in ten of its PC customers remains on Windows 10, which exited standard support terms in October.

Speaking to investors yesterday, Ketan Patel, president of personal systems, claimed the slow migration to Windows 11 was giving HP a financial boost. 

"Windows 11: 30 percent of the installed base is still to be refreshed. That's one tailwind which we see as an opportunity in the short run," he said.

Karen Parkhill, HP CFO, added that the trend was regional and particularly strong in EMEA and APJ for its financial second quarter, which ended April 30.

"We have roughly 30 percent of the installed base still on Windows 10, so we still have some more to go. The Win 11 refresh that we've driven now in EMEA and APJ is now on par with North America," she said.

Microsoft said support for Windows 10 would end for business customers on October 14, 2025, although security updates are available for the old OS in extended support, for which users pay a premium.

Why so many customers are yet to upgrade may be down to a few factors combined.

First, growth in device spending is more sluggish than other technology sectors. Gartner has forecast a 6.1 percent uptick in 2026, compared with 14.7 percent for software and 31.7 percent for datacenters.

Meanwhile, estimates from last year suggested 400 million systems could not be upgraded to Windows 11 because of Microsoft's hardware requirements, including mandatory TPM 2.0 chips and relatively modern processors. 

European campaigners flagged the Windows 11 upgrade as a textbook case for EU intervention, arguing that vendor-imposed software cutoffs, not hardware failure, were rendering perfectly serviceable PCs obsolete and needlessly adding to electronic waste. Microsoft subsequently blinked, offering consumers in the European Economic Area no-strings extended support for Windows 10 after the October deadline.

HP – which is not interested in pure software upgrades per se – had pinned its hopes on support expiry to kickstart a massive refresh cycle. It was slow to take off and adoption of the OS continues to lag trends seen in previous generations. HP's other best hope is AI.

"Both short run and long run, as a lot of customers are moving workloads to the edge, with rising cost of Gen AI, that is a great opportunity, we believe... That is where we will see commercial demand remain strong," Patel said.

Analysts previously told The Reg that relatively high prices and a lack of killer applications meant customers were in no rush to buy so-called AI PCs. 

HP's revenue grew 9 percent year-on-year to $14.41 billion in Q2 of its fiscal 2026 ended April 30, beating analyst estimates. Net profit was $450 million versus $406 million. ®